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Emergent Diseases

Definition

Emergent diseases are new infections resulting from changes or evolution of existing organisms; known infections spreading to new geographic areas or populations; previously unrecognized infections appearing in areas undergoing ecological transformation; old infections reemerging due to antimicrobial resistance in known agents or breakdowns in public health measures.

Analogy

Imagine you're playing a game where you have to fight off monsters. Suddenly, a new type of monster appears on the scene with different abilities than what you've seen before – this is similar to an emergent disease. It's something we haven't encountered before, making it harder for us to fight off at first.

Related terms

Epidemiology: The study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why they occur. It helps us understand patterns and causes of diseases in society.

Zoonotic Diseases: These are diseases caused by harmful germs like viruses, bacterial, parasites, and fungi spread between animals and humans.

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): This occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.